


All I Really Need is Time Travel and You

by Lethal_Interjection



Series: After the Endgame [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Canon Divergence - Avengers: Endgame (Movie), M/M, Past Relationship(s), Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-19
Updated: 2020-06-19
Packaged: 2021-03-03 18:48:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24800332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lethal_Interjection/pseuds/Lethal_Interjection
Summary: After returning all the stones, Steve goes back to 2012.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Series: After the Endgame [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1352548
Kudos: 128





	All I Really Need is Time Travel and You

**Author's Note:**

> There's a flashback scene in [Chapter 6 of Oh Captain, My Captain](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18715660/chapters/47052421#workskin) that serves as a prologue to this fic. Feel free to read that beforehand, but it's not really necessary. All you really need to know is Pepper, Bucky, and Bruce are aware that Steve went back in time with the intention of staying behind.
> 
> The title is from [Time Travel](https://music.apple.com/us/album/time-travel/1440817238?i=1440817513) by Daley

It’s been one month—30 days, 16 hours, 3 minutes, and 47 seconds to be exact—since he arrived in this timeline. One month since he’d confronted his teammates and himself (again) and told them who he was and (most of) why he was here. 

At first, he’d been quarantined in the lab until Bruce and Tony could ascertain the legitimacy of his story and the tips he’d provided about their future: Bucky’s current status and his part in the Starks’ death, Hydra’s infiltration of SHIELD, and Aldrich Killian’s Extremis plot. Unsurprisingly, every one of his tips had turned out to be correct and the team had acted almost immediately. 

The only people who actually believe that he is from the future are Tony, Bruce, and Natasha. Thor, Hill, and Fury are coming around too, but Rhodes, Clint, and the other Steve seem to just like being stubborn for the hell of it. Even after finding Bucky frozen in a cryo-tank in Siberia. 

Now, he finds himself restricted to one of the residential floors of the tower, _until we can figure out what to do with you,_ Fury had told him and his super-hearing had picked up Fury's request for Tony to _keep an eye on him._ It's not all bad though. The racket from construction efforts in the building has devolved into mere background noise at this point, and his three allies always make sure he has food, a place to work out, and something to entertain himself with. He isn’t anxious or scared or even displeased about his current predicament, he’d predicted some opposition. Bruce had warned him.

Steve is in the gym—on his 60th pull-up—when Tony strolls in, eyeing him as he crosses the room to take a seat on a nearby weight bench. Tony had never worked out with him back in the day in his timeline, even when they’d briefly occupied the same space. Before Steve had decided to run off to D.C. and be a SHEILD shill rather than take Tony up on his offer to house him permanently. Tony had always preferred to spar with Natasha rather than Steve because she never went easy on him. The old Steve tended to treat him with kid-gloves back then like he was some breakable thing that needed to be protected rather than the hero he truly was. Steve can admit that now. 

“It’s so weird,” Tony began, speaking as if they’d been casually chatting the entire time. “You two are absolutely nothing alike. You look alike—I mean, you have that whole silver fox thing going on,” he adds, referencing the grey streaks now adorning Steve’s hair. You’re genetically identical in every way, according to Bruce, and yet, you act nothing alike. 

Steve wrapped up his final pull-up and grabbed a towel. “Well, I am 11 years older than he is, Tony,” he explained, “I’ve had more time to... mature, I suppose.”

“Well, that’s obvious,” Tony huffs. “For one, you don’t seem to hate me.”

“He doesn’t hate you.”

Tony chuckles mirthlessly. “Coulda fooled me. Stop pretending to be a hero,” he parrots Steve’s sentiment from—well, it was only a few weeks ago for Tony. “That’s what he said to me, ‘you may not be a threat, but you’d better stop _pretending_ to be a hero.’ Sound familiar?”

The words cut him like a knife so he can only imagine how they’d hurt Tony. He’d felt like shit about it for weeks after the battle, but he never did give Tony an actual apology. They’d shook hands and left it at that. 

Steve had convinced himself that Tony didn’t need an apology, that he had too much going on in his life to caring about a few hollow words from an old man. But seeing, first hand, the way it is now affecting Tony, he’s ashamed and angry with himself. At least now he can literally kick his own ass if the spirit moves him.

“I really am sorry about that, Tony. I mean, seriously, you have no idea how much I--we--regret saying those words. I know it’s a long time coming but—”

“It’s not for me,” Tony pointed out, “and I appreciate it. Thanks, Cap.”

They are silent for an almost awkward amount of time before Tony speaks again. “So, I wanted to ask—we all did, actually but—why did you come back to _this_ time, specifically? You could have gone back to any time. You could’ve gone back to Peggy, saved Bucky on the train, coulda stopped Hydra getting its claws into SHIELD—why now? Why here?”

Steve doesn’t need a reminder of all the shit he’d let happen to come back here, back to Tony. The decision had haunted him ever since before he left with the stones. It was selfish as hell by anyone’s standards. He still hadn’t told anyone his real reason for coming back, but in his defense, no one had outwardly asked him until now. Leave it to Tony Stark.

“I came back for you, Tony,” he says before he can talk himself out of it. Better to lay his cards on the table and see if there's even a chance in hell--

“For me? Don’t you have your own Tony? Don’t be greedy, Rogers. One Tony per timeline,” Tony teases, smirking. Steve wants to kiss that smirk off his face.

“I _did_ have a Tony. Well, I—didn’t exactly have him, I—” Steve doesn’t even know how to talk about this. He’d worked out what he would say to them, to Tony, once he returned to this time, but it seems impossible to get out now.

“Something happened,” Tony's beautiful mind deduced. He gracefully slid from the bench onto a yoga mat. “Between you and… your Tony?”

“A lot happened,” Steve concedes with a vacant laugh. Understatement of the century.

“Tell me,” Tony prompts, crossing his legs. 

“There’s so much Tony.”

“Lucky for you, Spangles, I got nowhere to be today.”

Steve smiles at the nickname and settles onto the mat across from him mirroring Tony’s position. He tells him all of it—well, most of it—he leaves out the parts about his and Tony’s on again off again non-relationship and his recent epiphany about loving the man. Instead, he tells him about Bucky and Ultron, the Avenger's Civil War, Thanos, and the fate of _his_ Tony and Natasha. 

Tony sits there, quiet and attentive, and listens to it all. It’s the longest Steve has been in Tony’s presence and not heard his voice. It is a little disconcerting, to be honest.

“I bet I gave you hell when I got back to Earth,” Tony correctly assumes, completely ignoring the part about him dying to save the universe. He’s lying on his back now. Understandable since they’ve been talking for hours at this point.

“You did,” Steve smiles. “Called me a liar, told me I wasn’t there when you needed me—” _then you ripped your heart out and shoved it into my hand._

“It seems you weren’t,” Tony agrees, sitting up.

“I know, Tony. I regretted it every day. Every day that I kept the secret about your parents from you, every day after Siberia, every day after your return.”

Tony studies him silently for a moment and Steve wants to shrink under the intense gaze. “The way you talk about him—about me—I could never imagine the other Steve talking about me like that.”

“Like what?”

“With… respect, fondness.”

“You make him nervous. Unsteady,” Steve explains. “He’s not sure what to make of you yet and that intimidates him.” Tony is still searching his face and Steve has to look away. 

“Plus, he’s a fucking idiot,” Steve mutters, and that draws a hysterical laugh from Tony. God, he misses that laugh. The kind that formed the laugh lines Tony would joke about needing botox to fix.

“Language, Cap,” Tony laughs. “See, that’s what I’m talking about. You’re nice to me, you swear, you're just so—I dunno—easy-going. _That’s_ why some of my teammates don’t believe you are who you say you are.”

“I’ve passed every test, even gave you guys information that panned out exactly as I said it would.”

“Hey, I believe you. It’s not me you have to convince.”

“You’re the only one I care about convincing,” Steve confesses, still not meeting the other man’s eyes. He can still feel Tony staring at him though. 

A hush falls over the gym before Tony asks, “You love him, don’t you?”

Steve's eyes and throat begin to ache a little but he refuses to cry. God, why is this so hard? He’d planned this conversation out so many times over the last few weeks. “I did. Yeah.”

 _“Did?”_ Tony inquires, moving closer. “Past tense?”

“I told you, Tony. He’s… gone.” Steve can’t bring himself to say _dead_ for some reason. Probably because of who he’s currently talking to.

“Yeah but… love doesn’t just stop because someone dies.”

The alarmingly casual tone with which Tony speaks about his death aside, he does have a point. Steve had never stopped loving him. In fact, it wasn’t until Tony was gone that Steve realized this was the route he needed to take. He would have regretted it like he regretted almost everything else regarding Tony. 

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” he admits. “I do still love—” he didn’t know if he wanted to say _you_ or _him_ but Steve doesn’t get a chance to decide because Tony Stark has closed the distance between them and is now kissing him.

It's so soft and tentative, like a whisper of a kiss. Just like the first time, so long ago. A feeling of relief washes over him and Steve exhales into Tony's mouth. 

He's not properly melted into it before Tony backs away with a curse. “Why’d you stop?”

“I—I don’t even know why I did that. I’m sorry. I’m not your—I’m not him,” Tony rambles, panicked. 

“I mean, technically, you are,” Steve points out, grabbing his wrist and pulling him back. Tony almost instantly settles into him, resting his head on Steve’s shoulder. “I created a new timeline when I came back here.”

Steve plants a light kiss to the other man’s forehead and breathes in his scent. It’s all motor oil and metal and the faint aroma of that obnoxious body spray he used to wear. The familiarity makes something inside him soar and bloom. 

“You’re a theoretical physicist now, Spangles?” Tony quips.

“Not even a little bit, Shellhead.”


End file.
